I’ve wanted a slick, minimal smartwatch that connects to my iPhone for years. There have been plenty of attempts at this, especially recently, but the Pebble project on Kickstarter is the first one that I would actually love to see on my wrist.
The Pebble is a slim, attractive watch with an e-paper display. It has a vibrator, a three-axis accelerometer and Bluetooth 2.1+ EDR for connecting to your phone. The e-paper display is easily visible in daylight, just like a Kindle’s screen. The battery has a life of 7 days, the lens is scratch resistant and it’s charged via USB.
Basically you hook it up to your iPhone or Android phone via bluetooth and download the Pebble app from your preferred app store. Then you get customizable alerts when your phone rings and when you get email or messages.
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The watch is supposed to run a variety of apps for activities like cycling, golfing or running, using the accelerometers to act as an activity monitor, sort of like the Nike Fuelband.
The company behind this particular watch, Alerta, also makes the inPulse smartwatch. It takes a different tack, using a full color LCD screen. It also looks nowhere near as cool as the Pebble. It is definitely good that the company has a background in this kind of device, as the more complex a Kickstarter product is, the more wary I am of backing them.
Regardless, if you’re interested in a smartwatch that helps you keep your phone in your pocket a bit more and also doubles as an activity bracelet, the Pebble could be a cool one to keep an eye on. There are a variety of award levels, but the basic starts at $115 to get you one of the initial run of jet black watches.
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